After Melanie Read online

  ‘I told her that you were a colleague, a friend, and you wanted to be helpful to us. And she and I are helpful to you because you are very sad, because your daughter died.’

  ‘A good answer.’

  ‘But not adequate. She did not believe me.’

  ‘I see. Then what must we do, Nancy?’

  He did not know what he wanted her to say. Did he want her to tell him that their strange liaison was at an end, that they would each have to cope with their separate sorrows alone? Or perhaps she might suggest that their relationship become more intimate, that her daughter’s fantasy be treated as a possible reality.

  It occurred to him that even as Lauren fantasized about a father, Nancy herself might have fantasized about becoming his lover, his wife? How foolish he had been not to have thought of that earlier. She had been widowed for ten years. She was not a nun. She must have had lovers or, at least, loving relationships, given her gentle manner, her quiet beauty. Surely, over that decade of her aloneness, other men had come to her apartment and sat beside her on the soft gray couch. Did she think of him as different from those men? His marriage had never been part of their odd intimacy. It was possible, even probable, that she did not think of him as Judith’s husband.

  ‘I don’t know what I want us to do, David. You are important to me. And to Lauren. But our relationship is confusing to her and, to be honest, it is sometimes confusing to me. I suppose we need time, time to figure out our options and to understand them.’

  ‘Options?’ he repeated, as though the word was foreign to him.

  ‘You must know what I mean,’ she replied, and he nodded, although the truth was that he did not know.

  She reached for the book. ‘I’ll give it to her. Of course I will.’

  ‘I hope she enjoys it,’ he said. He thought his words foolish but did not know what else he might say.

  ‘I’m going away for a few days. I have to think. You understand?’

  ‘I do.’

  She smiled. He smiled back. He felt her eyes upon him as he left her office.

  He went to an empty conference room where he sat alone at the long table of polished dark wood. His elbows resting on the gleaming surface, his head in his hands, he tried to organize his thoughts. Options, Nancy had said and he understood, with startling clarity, what she had meant.

  He should have spoken to her of Judith. She had, he supposed, not unreasonably, assumed that his marriage was unhappy, that the solace that he found with her had a dimension that went beyond their shared grief and extended into the possibility of a shared future.

  He had to speak to her immediately, to apologize, to explain and offer what comfort he could for the false hope he had generated. He raced down the hall to her office but she was gone. The room was dark, her computer screen blank, her air conditioner stilled. The overhead light was on. He pressed the switch and welcomed the new darkness. His sense of urgency dissipated. There would be time enough to talk when she returned.

  He walked swiftly to Grand Central, stopped at a flower kiosk and bought Judith a bouquet of yellow roses. It was the first time he had carried flowers home since Melanie’s death.

  Judith accepted them with a rueful smile. ‘The last roses of summer,’ she said.

  She arranged them in a tall vase on the dining-room table, already set for dinner. They were eating in then and he was glad of it. He smiled as the scent of garlic and basil sauce wafted in from the kitchen. She had cooked his favorite meal. He thought she looked very beautiful in the sleeveless white cotton dress he had always liked. She wore only the lightest of lipsticks and the dark helmet of her hair was smooth and shining. He knew that if he pressed his face against it, he would inhale the familiar fragrance of her lilac-scented shampoo.

  He went to the window and stared out at the brilliant late summer sunset that blazed across the sky. ‘August,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Brian and Denise will be leaving for New Hampshire soon. Next week, I think.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘We owe ourselves a vacation,’ she suggested daringly.

  ‘An idea.’

  They stared down at their plates, both aware that it was, in fact, a strange idea for a couple who still slept in separate rooms, but an idea that neither of them was willing to dismiss, that, in fact, engaged them both.

  They spoke quietly over dinner. She told him about the young girl who had claimed the bridal gown. He asked for a second helping of the pasta and told her of an interesting case he had arbitrated – a quarrel between two brothers over the brand name of a pizza bar. They laughed, pleased at the ease of their exchange, aware that, however tentatively, they were moving toward each other.

  Over dessert she talked again about the possibility of a vacation. ‘We have to make plans quickly. My sabbatical is almost over. I begin teaching again in mid-September.’

  ‘Of course,’ he agreed. ‘When do you think? And where?’

  ‘Very soon. I thought perhaps the Shakespeare Festival in Canada. Stratford. It ends next week.’

  It was a calculated suggestion. They both loved Shakespeare. They both loved Stratford. They had, more than once, stayed in an inn where the room they favored had a large many-pillowed double bed that overlooked the lake. They had delighted in lying there together as dawn broke, watching the light of early morning glide across the quiet waters.

  ‘Next week. Not possible. There are things I must settle,’ he said.

  Nancy would be away for much of that week. He could not, would not, leave without talking to her, clarifying their relationship, offering a release to her, to himself. It was incumbent upon him to wait for her to return. It was – he struggled to find the right word – honorable. Such an old-fashioned word, honorable, and yet it seemed right to him.

  Judith stared at him. ‘Surely someone else at the office can step in and take care of any business that has to be settled.’

  ‘No. This is personal.’

  ‘Nancy,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Yes. I have to talk to her. Let me explain …’

  But he did not finish the sentence. Judith disappeared into the kitchen. He heard the clatter of pots and pans signaling an end to what they might have said to each other. He did not trail after her. Words of the explanation he had meant to offer deserted him.

  The phone rang. Brian calling to say goodbye. He and Denise were leaving for New Hampshire early the next morning.

  ‘Have a great time,’ David said. ‘And drive carefully.’

  It was unsettling that Brian would be driving an ancient Volvo borrowed from Denise’s father. He had resisted David’s offer of a new car. They didn’t need it. They didn’t want it. Parking in Manhattan was always a hassle. The Volvo was fine.

  ‘We’re both good drivers,’ Brian said, his tone edged with annoyance. ‘The car was just serviced.’

  Judith interrupted. ‘Our love to Denise’s family,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll tell them.’

  ‘You will be careful?’

  ‘Mom!’

  ‘Sorry,’ she apologized.

  She knew their warnings – hers and David’s both – to be gratuitous. They understood that monitory warnings had little impact on the capriciousness of life. Unforeseen dangers were inevitable, unpredictable. Pedestrians were hit by speeding cars, sudden rip tides claimed the lives of experienced swimmers, a lurking aneurysm stopped the heart of a healthy child. It was an understanding painfully earned and jointly held, a burden they would not impose on their son.

  ‘Have a wonderful vacation,’ she added in appeasement. ‘Take good care of your Denise.’

  ‘I will. I do.’ Joy returned to his voice.

  She hung up and she and David looked at each other.

  ‘They’ll be fine,’ she said.

  ‘Of course they’ll be fine.’

  She pleaded fatigue and went upstairs. He went into the dimly lit living room and listened to the first movement of the Berlioz Requiem.

  Alone in
the bedroom, Judith turned the dog-eared pages of The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson, searching for a half-remembered line. She raced from one poem to another and at last found the words she sought. You cannot make Remembrance grow … She closed the book. She would not have remembrance grow; she could not bear the pain.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Brian called from New Hampshire to assure them that all was well, that they were having a great time. ‘Great,’ he repeated.

  The need to tell his parents that all was well was a new self-imposed protocol that he both observed and resented.

  ‘I don’t want to have to constantly check in,’ he complained to Denise.

  ‘Why not? It’s just a phone call and it relieves their anxiety,’ she countered.

  She was right, he knew, and he made the calls, often catching Judith on her cell phone as she drove to the thrift shop.

  ‘I’ll tell Dad,’ she said after one such call, and he felt a surge of optimism at her casual reference to his father. ‘New Hampshire must be beautiful at this time of the year,’ she added.

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is,’ he agreed and hung up, grateful to Denise for her sensible advice, grateful to Denise for simply being Denise.

  Judith was right. New Hampshire, during the waning days of summer, was beautiful, with its golden dawns and cool, moonlit evenings. Brian and Denise walked down woodland trails, paddled a canoe through the serene waters of a tree-shaded lake and planned their wedding, deciding at last on Thanksgiving.

  Their decision to move up the date of their marriage puzzled Denise’s family, but they offered her parents no explanation. They had, after all, come to their decision without offering an explanation to each other. Brian had suggested it after his somber lunch with his father and Denise had agreed. Their silent apprehension was shared.

  They knew that David and Judith slept in separate rooms and spoke to each other with the exaggerated politeness of casual strangers, adrift as they were on dangerous currents. Brian and Denise were determined to marry before they were thrust against the threatening shoals of his parents’ encroaching estrangement.

  It had occurred to Brian that his marriage might help his mother and father to heal the rift in their lives, that it would offer them a window on a future in which mutual happiness could be celebrated. He imagined them dancing together on his wedding day, united by his happiness, perhaps anticipating new vistas. Denise – his wonderful, generous Denise – would be a daughter to them. A family of four would be reconstituted. Magical thinking, he knew, but it comforted him.

  The lazy days of late summer passed and they discussed their plans with Denise’s approving family. The wedding would be smaller and more intimate than the celebration they had originally planned. Denise wondered what had happened to the magenta fabric swatches Melanie had collected so carefully. Not important, of course. There would be no junior bridesmaid. Only her own two sisters would be in the wedding party and they would not wear magenta. It was decided that her family’s rabbi would officiate. Judith and David would not want their own rabbi who had eulogized Melanie. Their wedding would not be death-haunted.

  ‘I want both my parents to walk me to the wedding canopy,’ Brian whispered to Denise as they held each other close.

  ‘Of course you do. And of course they will. Not to worry. This is just a really bad time for them. It will pass over,’ she assured him. ‘They will be fine.’

  ‘Will it?’ he asked doubtfully. ‘Will it pass over? Will they be fine?’

  She did not answer him. Instead, she spoke of leaving earlier than anticipated if the heat continued to intensify. Brian agreed. He did not want to risk a recurrence of the asthma that had haunted his childhood and occasionally became threatening when the temperature peaked dramatically.

  Denise called Judith and told her that they had decided on a Thanksgiving Day wedding. ‘I hope that works for you both,’ she said. ‘For you and David.’ The coupling of their names was reassuring.

  ‘Fine,’ Judith agreed.

  Clutching the phone, she looked through her kitchen window at her garden bathed in the dappled sunlight of late summer. Her asters were already in full blossom. September loomed, ushering in melancholy autumn with its pale sunsets and falling leaves. Very soon the branches of the apple tree would be bare. The season of vacation was ending; her sabbatical drifted toward its unsatisfactory, unsatisfying conclusion. She shivered. ‘I’m sure it will be fine for David as well,’ she added, and wondered why her voice was so faint and why she gripped the phone so tightly.

  ‘Hey, Mom, are you all right?’ Brian, who had been listening on the extension, asked, his question laced with concern. ‘Is Dad home?’

  ‘No. He had an early-morning meeting. An important new case. And I’m fine.’ She managed a lilt, a dismissive laugh. ‘Of course I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Just asking.’

  ‘Is it very hot up there?’ she asked.

  ‘Hot enough. If it gets much worse, we’ll probably leave. Mom, are you sure you’re all right?’ he asked again.

  ‘Of course. I’m fine. Really.’

  She hung up, suffused with an inexplicable sadness. She had not lied. She was all right. Not fine perhaps, but all right.

  She was ready to leave for the thrift shop when David called. He would not be home for dinner. A late meeting. An important project.

  ‘I understand,’ she said and wondered what it was she understood. That he was lying? That his absence was a relief of a kind? She shrugged, hung up without saying goodbye and glanced at her watch. Suzanne, who had a doctor’s appointment, had asked her to open the shop that morning and she did not want to be late.

  The phone was ringing even as she turned the shop key in the door. She hurried to answer it but heard only a soughing release of breath and then the sharp click of a hang-up.

  Certainty gripped her. She was certain that the ghost caller was Eric. Suzanne had left the thrift shop number on her answering machine so that her son would have it. She decided that if the phone rang again, she would say his name, softly, unthreateningly.

  And the phone rang again.

  ‘Eric?’ His name emerged as a question.

  ‘Eric? Who is Eric?’ Jeffrey Kahn’s voice was tinged with amusement.

  ‘A long story,’ she replied. ‘How are you, Jeffrey? It’s been a while.’

  Ten days actually. She knew because she had been counting them even as she had refrained from calling him. They had not spoken since the evening they had sat opposite each other at his kitchen table, speaking so very softly about their children, careful to avoid any mention of the tenderness they had so dangerously offered each other earlier in the day.

  ‘I was away. A medical conference in Philadelphia.’

  ‘I see.’ She thought to say, You might have told me, but remained silent. He was under no obligation to tell her anything at all.

  ‘I wondered if you had any time to help me this week. There are some odds and ends I need your advice on. Also, my basement is full of furniture – most of it my daughters’ discards – and I thought you might have some ideas about where I might donate it.’

  ‘Well, I’ll try to arrange something, although this week is a little tight. Someone I work with may need my help, and David and I were talking about taking a vacation of some sort. Let me call you. I do want to help you.’

  ‘Thank you. There’s no need to rush. I’ll wait for your call.’

  She heard the relief in his voice and knew that his ambivalence matched her own. It was true that Suzanne might need her support, but it was also true that she delayed returning to his home because the thought of being alone with him unnerved her. Her mention of David and their mythical vacation had been a protective lie. But what, then, was she protecting? Her vulnerable marriage, her fidelity?

  She sighed as Libby and Lois entered together, tanned and carefree, laden with shopping bags overflowing with their children’s outgrown summer clothing and chattering about carpool s
chedules and the unreliability of babysitters. She envied them the innocence of their concerns. Libby held the door for a tall, unkempt young man, a zigzag scar ribbing his pale cheek.

  Judith glanced at him and noted that although he was painfully thin, his shoulders hunched, his eyes red-rimmed, he was oddly handsome. Probably another young recovering addict from the nearby drug rehab center in search of T-shirts or jeans stored in a giveaway bin.

  He approached her. She looked up and smiled.

  ‘Do you have stuff for guys? Like maybe a leather jacket? Denim maybe?’ he asked hesitantly.

  She pointed him toward the sagging rack hung with men’s clothing and turned back to sorting through a bag of new donations.

  ‘All summer stuff,’ she murmured to Libby. ‘We’ll have to store it until next spring. We’ll get to it in late March.’

  Her own words cast a spell of sadness. Next spring. Late March. The anniversary of Melanie’s death. Where would the memorial candle flicker? Would it be reflected in the burnished copper tray in their living room or would its fragile flame keep vigil in a barren apartment, awaiting the furnishings of a life yet to begin? Her life alone.

  Trembling, she banished the question, angry at herself for wallowing, however briefly, in such bitter, self-imposed misery, for creating a dark and improbable scenario. She was overreacting, she told herself. Not everything was a portent of approaching danger. Inhaling, exhaling, she calmed herself, carried the summer clothing into the storeroom and shoved it into a storage bin.

  ‘To be dealt with next spring.’ Defiantly, she said the words aloud.

  It was a busy morning. A manufacturer gifted the shop with his overstock of new backpacks and news of their availability spread. Alert mothers of schoolchildren rushed in to snap them up, paying in crumpled bills. By noon Judith had counted two hundred dollars and banded them together. The owner of an antique jewelry store, a heavily made-up woman swathed in a profusion of scarves, arrived and collected several necklaces she had reserved. She paid with three crisp hundred-dollar bills. By noon there was over six hundred dollars in the register, an unusually large amount for the shop, but no one could be spared for a sprint to the bank to deposit the cash. They would have to wait for Suzanne.